


A Practical Guide to Spying on Diego Hargreeves (and Not Making a Bloody Mess of It)

by Melivian



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Gaslighting, I mean it's Lila and the Handler, Lila Pitts-centric, Manipulation, Manipulative Relationship, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Second Person, Regular Deception, Self-Deception, The Handler's A+ Parenting, Unconventional Format, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:39:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melivian/pseuds/Melivian
Summary: "1. Find out the woman your mark wants you to be, and then do your best impression of her."Lila's rules on how to best manipulate Diego Hargreeves for the sake of her mission. She's pretty sure she's the one doing the manipulating.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts, The Handler & Lila Pitts
Comments: 29
Kudos: 53
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!





	A Practical Guide to Spying on Diego Hargreeves (and Not Making a Bloody Mess of It)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Elliott's House TUA Big Bang. My words were "medicine" and "sleeping."
> 
> A huge thanks to [electric016](https://archiveofourown.org/users/electric016/pseuds/electric016) and [swordboys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordboys/pseuds/swordboys) for beta reading this, as well as to [forestdivinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForestDivinity/pseuds/forestdivinity) for discussing Lila characterization and headcanons with me.
> 
> I hope this should go without saying, but the relationship dynamics in this fic are not supposed to be healthy. Please don't try any of this at home on your significant other!

  1. **Find out the woman your mark wants you to be, and then do your best impression of her.**



Before jumping in, you want to plan your angle of attack. Pick the mask in your collection that's best suited for the job. The file your mum gave you on Diego Hargreeves is scant on details, but works as a starting point: tough bloke from the late 2010s, emotionally constipated, shit childhood, thick as a brick.

Right now you're leaning toward channeling some serious manic pixie dream girl energy. Think a cross between Natalie Portman from _Garden State_ and Angelina Jolie from _Girl, Interrupted_. You've never seen either movie, because with all of history's oeuvres at your disposal, a girl can afford to be picky, but you know the template. The quirky free spirit who'll teach him to enjoy life by running barefoot in the rain with him and by making him come—spontaneous enough to paint your fingernails wacky colours, not spontaneous enough to set his possessions on fire because an angel told you to.

You can adapt on the fly if you need to. You've never been one for subduing your personality, but your mother always says it’s important to have a large repertoire. Each cat needs to be skinned with a different knife. But whether someone is most easily manipulated through flattery or abuse or sultry pouts or banter, it always ends the same. They'll lie to you, disappoint you, use you for their own purposes if you let them. It makes you feel better when you leave them behind with a scarf around their throat or a dagger in their chest. You've stolen back what they've tried to steal from you.

  1. **Let them see what they want to see.**



This one is easy. The moment your mother tells the admitting doctor at the Holbrook Sanitarium in a hushed whisper that her poor sweet adopted daughter is unwell and having delusions, you stop being a person to him. You become a madwoman, a blemish to be hidden away from polite society. Really, you don't need to fake any symptoms, although you're enough of a craftswoman to do some token fidgeting and occasionally let your gaze dart to the side as though you see something invisible lurking in the corner. It's the sixties—you don't need intensive diagnostic screening. As long as you're compliant enough not to get lobotomized, you're golden.

The receptionist's eyes skim over the forged paperwork, and soon you're handed a gown and shuffled off to be processed and medicated. Stare at the paper cup of rainbow pills in your hand. Learn to fake the swallowing motion, to keep the one-size-fits-all medicine wedged in your throat as you stick your tongue out for the benefit of the nurse. Cough it up in the toilet.

  1. **Observe your target and then initiate contact.**



Before you're even settled in, you're searching for Diego Hargreeves in every crowd. It doesn't take long to spot him in the rec room, barely recognizable as the man from your photograph with his wild, unkempt hair and twitching eyes. Even in his unflattering white gown, your gaze lingers on his muscular arms, on the broad shoulders and intense stare and firm jawline his hideous beard can't hide. But this is business, not pleasure.

What you really want is to gut him like a fish. To dissect him and study his organs under a microscope. Soon you'll perk your ears up in every group therapy session, mentally taking notes on all of Diego’s neuroses and complexes, scouring what you hear for weaknesses to exploit.

But right now you tear out a page from an old magazine and fold it into a hat. Then smile and ask him how he's enjoying the accommodations at the nuthouse. Tell him you could use a guide to show you around, then balance the paper hat on his head for maximum quirkiness.

He tells you to leave him alone, and anyway, it doesn't matter, because he'll break out of here in a week. Then he crumples the hat up into a ball and chucks it in the bin.

You think, this is your kind of insufferable wanker, and you like him already.

  1. **Have a fucking blast.**



This is your stage, and you're the star of the show. There's only so much attention you can call to yourself as a spy, but it's a psych ward, and you can hide in plain sight. So you make the most of it. Say outlandish nonsense in group. Stick cigarettes up your nose. Sparkle like a sheet of shiny paper to catch Diego's attention. Make it so he can't ignore you no matter how hard he tries. It's all a game, and you're playing grandmaster-level chess against someone too slow to grasp the rules of Noughts and Crosses.

A side bonus is that you can tell being a shit-stirrer is warming you up to Diego in spite of himself. At first, he rebuffs your advances, but more and more, he's parrying your banter with gusto, even initiating it.

In some ways, you and Diego are peas in a pod. Tough and bold and always in search of a man to stick it to. There are times you think you're unlucky to have a mother who lets you (literally and figuratively) get away with murder. You were born wanting boundaries to cross, but instead she indulged your cravings for third helpings of ice cream and egged on all your hookups. Rather than lose her composure, she’d brush off your petty rebellions with an infuriating condescension, as though she found your sass amusing. Most of the time, anyway, and...well, it’s best not to think about the exceptions.

(You try not to think of your other mother, the one you last saw facedown on the floor.)

  1. **Mix the bitter with the sweet.**



Whoever said that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar has never met a man who didn't get enough love from Daddy. He'll unconsciously bend over backwards to win the approval of anyone who insults him enough. So you change your approach from ingratiating to dismissive. Challenge Diego and call him out on his bullshit (and boy, is there a _lot_ of bullshit). Leave your mark feeling like he doesn't measure up.

Then mix it up with the occasional kind gesture. A stolen piece of bacon from the kitchen, a rare compliment, maybe a teensy bit of flirting because you're only human. Useless things that cost you nothing, but that he can read the fucking world into. He'll value each measly scrap you toss him far more than if you'd been generous.

This is another trick your mother taught you. A carrot of affection dangled just out of reach will make someone stretch out his arm to grab it. You count your lucky stars that you can't relate. Of course, you've spent much of your life alone—educated in a new boarding school every year, isolated from other children your age, without a family. But you understood why it was necessary. Your adopted mother was getting on in years, after all, and you needed to age to catch up with her. And every young girl needs a general education along with the more practical skill set the Commission provides.

Anyway, it was always temporary. When the term was over and you were back home, months passing for you and only hours for her, your mother would shower you with more love than you knew what to do with.

All it takes is one look at Diego for you to realize how lucky you are, you think, running your fingers over the beads of the cheap bracelet that he made. Only sometimes you look at the carrot in your hands and wonder if it's really a carrot.

  1. **Make yourself of use to Diego while holding back your true strength.**



You realize quickly that Mr. Lone Wolf won't let you tag along unless you prove your worth. As luck would have it, circumstances give you the perfect opportunity. Save his life and help him escape the asylum with only minimal showing off. Aim for something in the ballpark of “tough and spunky action girl” when you take out the guards—someone who can impress Diego by holding her own in a fight, but who could conceivably be an average Jane.

Even after the assassins show up, hold back. When you can get away with it, let a few bullets clatter uselessly to the ground behind you, your body synchronizing with the steady hum of Diego's power nearby.

You hope he doesn't think too carefully about where you learned to hotwire a car, or to push a dislocated arm back into its socket. Diego doesn't think too carefully about anything.

Still, much as it pains you to admit, he's _good_. For someone so dense, Diego is surprisingly resourceful. You hadn't expected him to escape that padded cell without your help. You feel a begrudging respect for him, one apex predator to another. As the two of you sprint through back alleys, he grabs your hand. Your heart is racing, and you can't tell if it's the adrenaline or the thrill of the chase or the rush of your borrowed superpower that’s making you feel like electricity is coursing through your veins.

  1. **Lose your absolute fucking mind.**



Never mind, you take back everything you just said about respect. This guy. Seriously. What is wrong with him? You want to die. Oswald’s trigger finger. His _trigger finger_. How did Diego survive to adulthood? You think he's very lucky he's pretty.

  1. **Show just enough vulnerability to hook him.**



Trying to impress Diego isn't getting the results you hoped for. Worse, now his obnoxious baby brother is here—the one whose reputation with your employer precedes him—and he seems to hate your guts. You know your position is precarious.

So maybe it's time to shake things up. What's the one thing a man with a hero complex as serious as Diego's can't resist? A victim who needs rescuing.

Widen your eyes at their mad talk of time travel and apocalypses as if it's all so overwhelming. Remember how you felt as a little girl—whisked away from your home in East London to an unfamiliar building outside time and space, the gunshots and screams still fresh in your mind. Now tap into that feeling, only apply it to a grown woman who should really have more sense. Conspiracies? Assassinations? Gosh, your itty-bitty head hurts!

But the real stroke of genius is disappearing without explanation. Mum always told you the best way to persuade someone is to let him think it was his idea. When Diego is the one who finds you in the makeshift darkroom, say a silent prayer of gratitude to a god you don't believe in. Let your lip quiver and cry your best crocodile tears. Act like you’re a helpless ditz who’d be lost without him. Tell him you failed remedial school and even yogurt is too complicated for your delicate mind to process. At once, you see the shift. You're no longer the obnoxious lunatic cramping his style. You're someone who needs to be protected. Someone a good man like him could never abandon.

A lesser agent might find it degrading to pretend to be dumber than Diego. But it’s all a game. It's not showing real vulnerability—you're introducing Diego to a character named Lila Pitts who wears your skin. This Lila has a sweet fragility underneath her hard shell. If her breath catches and her heart skips when his thumb brushes a tear off her cheek, it's because she's touched by the gentle act, not just because she desperately needs to get laid.

When he reciprocates your stupid pinkie swear so earnestly, you almost feel sorry for the bastard. Part of you wants to shake him awake. Doesn't he see he's falling into a trap? If there's anything he should have learned from his father, it's that some people are just shell all the way down.

  1. **Never let your target out of your sight.**



Well done, Lila! Still, Five and Diego aren't including you in their plans, which is a bloody huge problem when learning them is why you’re here in the first place. So sneak out of Elliott's house minutes after they leave, following at a safe distance and borrowing Five's power to help you stay in range.

Watch them break into the building on Olive Street. When the coast is clear, teleport behind a couch. Although you catch part of their conversation, you give up and head outside again when they split up down separate exposed corridors. You'll have to settle for the knowledge that they're searching the building for _something_ and piece together what they find later.

Hear a scuffle, then a scream. Run toward the direction of the sound. You see Diego lying in the middle of the street, the most fragile he's ever looked, blood pooling beneath him. His face is ashen, and your heart leaps in your throat. And for a moment, you can't help him, because you're not here, you're in a flat in London in 1993. Shivering in a stranger's arms, hearing her whisper words you can't understand because your undeveloped brain is too busy trying to process the horror in front of you.

But you snap out of it, and you kneel over Diego's body. Check his pulse, then sigh with relief when you feel it chugging along. His skin is still warm under your fingertips. Pull off one of his socks and press it to the wound in his abdomen because it's the only thing you have on hand to stop the bleeding. The doofus is lucky you know some basic first aid.

Five is nowhere to be found. You think you'll tear out that tiny feral toddler's throat for leaving Diego like this. It's pathetic that you're somehow treating Diego better than his own brother is.

Why are those who least deserve it always the ones left to die on the floor?

  1. **Have him owe you a debt.**



Once the bleeding has slowed and you're sure Diego is out like a light, seek out the distant signal of Five’s power. Calibrate yourself to the right frequency, then teleport with Diego’s heavy body back to Elliott's house. When you're alone, undress him, enjoying the view while you're at it, then clean out and cauterize his wounds.

Of course, it's nice to have him alive—even if Diego weren't surprisingly tolerable, you need him for your mission. You'd be tossed to the curb faster than you could say “prepubescent” if Five were in charge. But there's also something to be said for making him feel indebted to you. Now you can milk this for days as a deflection tactic. The next time he doubts you, you'll be able to throw it in his face: I saved your life.

Gratitude and loyalty are powerful claws to sink into a person. It's easy to stay blind to someone’s intentions when you owe them everything.

  1. **Mix some truth in with the lies.**



Somehow, midway through your standard banter with Diego, you find yourself curled up on the bed beside him. An electric charge passes between the two of you, and you're conscious of his bare chest, of your skin against his. Maybe that's what clouds your judgment enough for you to reach for a weapon with the potential to cut yourself as well: the truth. You may be a good liar, trained by the best liar you've ever met, but no mask is as convincing as your own face.

So when you can tell he's suspicious, appeal to this poor sap's sense of pity with another sob story. Only this time, you hear a quiver in your voice that you don't have to fake. Your eyes are stinging. As you speak, your mind drifts back to the flat in East London, and this time, Diego is with you.

You're conscious of the picture you're painting. Just a few details—four years old, home invasion, parents dead on the living room floor. It doesn't take much imagination for Diego's mind to fill in the rest, to see the blood, the holes in the back of their skulls, a wisp of a girl in a nightgown sobbing, a lonely childhood in an orphanage.

Remember that you haven't given him anything of yourself. This image mesmerizing him isn't you even if it shares some of your past. It's an illusion, a trick of the light. A sparkling reflection on the surface of a poisoned stream.

The truth is, you never cried. You were scared, so scared. But you were too young to really understand what was happening. You just stared at their bodies on the ground and thought, oh. So that's it. It would take years for the meaning of the stains on the floor to sink in. Years longer for you to fully grasp what you'd lost that night.

But that's too cynical, too complicated. The simple picture tugs on heartstrings more.

Still, it's almost a relief. Like you've unburdened yourself of a load you didn't know you were carrying. You never realized how much you needed someone to hear your story and actually care. Something inside your chest flutters and becomes soft.

Too bad for him that you don't like soft.

So you go in for the kill.

  1. **Always make sure that you're the one in control.**



Lock eyes with your prey. Move in closer, preparing to strike— 

—and then the idiot ruins it by kissing you. On instinct, you slap him. You aren’t about to let anyone else be in the driver's seat.

Rip off your clothes, then his, with a ferocity that surprises even you. Remind yourself as you let go that you're not showing weakness. It's more like...you're a lioness devouring an especially juicy zebra. Not a sexy image, but the point is, you have all the power here. So you bite his neck while your hips grind against his. You pin his gym-toned arms against the bed, watching him writhe underneath you, his mask of stoicism gone. And when you fuck him, grab his hair and pull it until he cries out. Make sure to stay on top, to control the rhythm of what's happening.

Look at his stupid face, how he comes undone in such a silly way, and think, boys are so easy to take apart. You're cutting him open, tearing out his innards and throwing them all over the bed in plain view. But you give away nothing. When his hand reaches downward and he tries to reciprocate, scratch him so hard he bleeds and push it off you so he understands the rules. He doesn't give—you take.

Afterwards, rest your head against Diego's sweaty chest, his skin burning hot, and listen to his pounding heart. You find yourself becoming engulfed in him. Taking him in with every breath. But if lying here feels safe—almost like you could live in this space between heartbeats forever—tell yourself that it's not because you're with Diego. You're taking advantage of his body, just like the rest of him.

  1. **Be patient.**



Wait until he's sleeping to make your move. Force yourself to leave the bed as though you're breaking free of an enchantment. Outside, the stars hang bright in the sky, and the moon shimmers with an eerie phosphorescence. You're not sure why this moment is heavier than usual, why each star is sparkling like it has a hidden significance only you can understand, why the full moon is taking your breath away. Nothing about this room and this night is special.

Dress quickly, reminding yourself to stay in control. When you're not in control is when things go wrong. Don't let your eyes trace the contour of his cheekbones and jawline, don't let your gaze soften, and don't fall in love.

Don't fall in love.

Don't fall in—

Sneak out of the house, making sure not to let Elliott hear.

  1. **Stick to the mission.**



Choose to go along with your mother, even though you’re sick of her cryptic bullshit and you don’t quite swallow the condescending non-answers she gives you about the asylum attack. Accept her bizarre request to protect the man responsible for screwing over your employers and ruining her life. You talk a big game, but you and your mother both know that you don't have the option of refusing her.

Remind yourself that you have a job to do. The ends justify the means, and if your heart skips just a beat when she suggests killing Diego, tell yourself that it's normal to have a sliver of doubt. After all, the man's dick was just inside you. It's biology. If you blink when something gets in your eye, that doesn’t mean you’re not ruthless enough to gouge it out without a moment’s hesitation. Likewise, if you ever have to pull the trigger, you know you'll make the right decision.

  1. **When you're losing ground, the best defence is a good offence.**



Five has never liked you, you've known since the beginning. All your attempts to charm him fall flat. But now his scepticism is infecting Diego. At the Mexican consulate, you try all your mother's tactics when Diego asks you where you went last night, all the deflection and dissimulation and guilt-tripping, but nothing lands. Christ, the boy is like a dog with a bone. So you distract him by pulling him into a dance.

As you move with the music, your bodies pressed together, his eyes are locked on your own, and the world seems to contract to the two of you. When his hands run down your hips, those same hands that were touching you much less innocently earlier, your mind fills with delightfully perverted thoughts. You think of dragging him by his tie into the bathroom down the hall, of tearing off the ill-fitting suit he borrowed from Elliott, of shoving him against the wall and hitching your dress up and riding him until the guests pound on the door outside. Instead you let the dance say it all.

He dips you, and as you drop, you get the impression that you're somehow both sinking into a sticky quagmire and rising miles above the dance floor at once. Restrain a giggle at his stupid fake accent, because you feel strangely fluttery and lightheaded, like you've had more champagne than you'd thought.

But you fight back. Take the lead and go on the offensive. Show him who's really in charge, like you did last night. The way you like it, the way _he_ likes it deep down even if it hurts his fragile ego to admit it. Guard the soft parts of yourself. Make him the one with more to lose.

Still, it shocks you, how your stomach twists when you see him get distracted by the blonde in the hall. Like you've become a cliche, some jilted woman from a daytime soap.

You're exhilarated, but also terrified. You're no longer sure you'll leave this mission as the same person you were when you came in.

  1. **Think with your head instead of your heart.**



A good Commission spy knows to prioritize the mission. A good Commission spy certainly doesn't throw away the whole game because someone makes googly eyes at her.

So you choose Five, choose the man who never gave you an inch, who went out of his way to be a shit to you, who you hated even when you were a girl and he still worked for the Commission, just for how your mother would speak of him as a shining example of the agent you needed to become. Choose him over Diego, the man who’s useless to you aside from a good shag.

Show that you're a strong woman. That you're in control of your emotions, that you don't waver just because a man has a six-pack and a firm arse.

Only later, after you've let Diego slip through your fingers, do you realize that you'd known from the start Five hadn't needed your help. It hadn't been about the mission at all. You'd wanted to prove to yourself that you were willing to let Diego die.

  1. **Remind yourself that everyone is a liar.**



When it turns out that the Commission never sent you and this whole mission was one of your mother's inscrutable whims, know deep down that your anger is toothless. What else did you expect?

You’re no naive flower. You know the ropes. Back at the Commission, you can't toss a stone without hitting a spy or an assassin. At eight, you were sent out to tail people undercover; at sixteen, to slit throats. You were young when you learned how to lie to people. You weren’t much older when you learned that they were all lying back to you. 

And Mum has always been the worst of all. Far too often, you've fallen for the same trick. She’d bat her fake eyelashes and pinch your cheeks, coo over how pretty you look today. Then in her most sugary voice, she'd make one teensy little request— _run this errand for me, darling, or plant this file in that Commission exec's desk, and it'll be our secret._ And even though she'd refuse to explain why, somehow she'd always find a way to get you to play along. Occasionally she'd tempt you with a reward. Maybe she’d tell you that as a treat, you wouldn’t have to go back to school this semester. _Why don’t you and I take a lovely trip together instead? Get in some mother-daughter bonding. Screw Commission rules, we'll travel to ancient Athens and see the Parthenon when it was whole. Or to Paris in the nineteenth century to have a nice cup of coffee with Charles Baudelaire._ But then the start of term would come again, and when you reminded her of her promise, she'd be unapologetic: _what, you believed me? Again? Honey, you need to be smarter. Think of it as a life lesson._

So even if it drives you up the wall that your mother is feeding you more platitudes and insulting the memory of your late parents, it's not like this is anything new. Her kind of love is no less real just because it's based on something other than trust.

You believe in the Commission's lofty mission of protecting the timeline, but you also know that they're fallible. Your mother has leaked all the juicy gossip to you, the sordid secrets and the bungling of those in charge. When it comes down to it, your loyalty lies toward the woman who rescued you, who nurtured you and made you the person you are now. If she's rough around the edges—if sometimes you're not sure you know all that much _about_ your mother underneath the sparkle and pizzazz—who isn't? An honest woman is a dead woman.

Besides, you've just burned the last of your bridges. Where else do you have to go?

  1. **Beat the shit out of that brat Five.**



With the week you've been having, you're in dire need of some stress relief. And lord, you're enjoying this. You tried so hard to be nice to that shitheel, to butter him up and high-five him and parrot all his ideas, but in return he gave you the cold shoulder. That obnoxious little twat needs someone to take him down a peg.

And it's fun to mess with Five's head by disappearing and popping up again in the wrong place. Throughout your training, your mother drove you mental by asking you the same question time and time again: would you be ready to face Number Five, if you needed to? As if she'd foreseen that one day Five would betray her. But now you see that he falls apart in a fight where he doesn't have an unfair advantage. He can't bring himself to accept that you just might be his match.

Only it never ends how you wanted it to. It ends with his foot on your throat, you coughing and wheezing, your mother waiting just a smidgen too long and sounding just a smidgen too calm before asking him to unhand you. With her freezing you out and trusting Five instead of you with the most important job of all.

Once again, you're not quite good enough for her. It's as though she's always just an arm's length out of reach.

  1. **Hide your weaknesses.**



Resent your mother for always knowing you inside and out. With one glance, she can read your mind and see the face that won't stop running through it. So you laugh it off whenever she hits too close to the mark. Tell her you'd kill _him_ in a heartbeat. Downplay the way your fingers brush automatically over the brown beads around your wrist, like a child seeking out a comforting toy.

And when you find yourself with a stupid grin so wide it hurts on your face, isolate yourself. Sit on the balcony outside your suite at the Commission and stare at the night sky. Here you exist outside of time and space, locked in the same twenty-four-hour cycle in 1955 on repeat. Orion's belt stays frozen above the fir tree in the courtyard, and the forever waxing crescent moon is half-hidden by the cloud that always drifts across its face at this hour. It's not like the real world, where the constellations change with the seasons. Every star is glued in place.

Remember how when you were away at school, sometimes you'd wait until your dormmates fell asleep and then perch on the window sill, craning your neck up. As the weeks and months passed, you'd notice the stars changing positions. It would make you feel unmoored, like a helpless passenger on the earth's journey around the sun. You were always at the mercy of forces outside your control.

So you'd count the days until the term ended so you could go home again, and then your glamorous mother would make her entrance, stylishly anachronistic in her mink coat and pillbox hat. “Darling,” she'd say each time, “how you've grown!” You'd smell her strong, sickly-sweet perfume as she kissed your cheek, leaving the residue of her lipstick behind. And sometimes you'd wonder if the stars at the Commission would come off the same way—cheap sparkles that would stick to your hand if you rubbed the sky, just as artificial.

Only now you think of how you felt as Diego slept beside you. The stars above you were disorienting and unfamiliar, the round moon glowing a ghostly white, your heart a butterfly's wing in your chest. Everything alive, magical. And it didn't matter then if it was just an ephemeral moment, a bubble about to be popped. You were caught in something so profound it scared you, after a lifetime of nursing on affection that was glib and paper-thin.

And you only realize what you've lost now that it's gone.

  1. **Know what you want and go for it.**



Enough is enough. Who were you trying to fool, anyway? Even if you lie to the rest of the world, you've always been honest with yourself.

So you take what you want. You're a grown woman. No more hiding and schoolgirl blushing. You're ready to show off your new boyfriend to the world, without shame, and stand your ground as a security chief with your own point of view.

And if Diego needed a small nudge to go along with you...well, he'll get over it.

Really, though, you wish he'd be more reasonable about the whole thing. You expected a man with his upbringing to be less of a spoiled child. Oh, boohoo, so you lied to him. As if a bit of a nap isn't a fair trade for a dream job and a steady relationship. If your roles were reversed, you'd take it on the chin with a smile. How did he last three decades without learning basic lessons about human nature? Everyone, whether it’s a stranger or a loved one, influences those around them to get what they want. It’s how the world works.

And is it really so wrong that for once, instead of getting manipulated, you want to be the one pulling the strings? You love your mother, but this new side of her makes you uncomfortable. You're not sure you want to follow where this hunger for power is leading her. Just in case, you want some leverage. People around you that make you feel safe, that you can trust to stick around.

Well, the joke is on you there, isn't it?

  1. ~~**Deny everything.**~~



Maybe he's just gone for a snack. Or for a walk around headquarters, to stretch his legs. He wouldn't abandon you, would he? Not when he promised—

  1. ~~**Get revenge on the bastard who betrayed you.**~~



You're going to wring his neck. You're going to bash his hideous caveman face in (also, his beard looks stupid, and girl, you could have done _so_ much better). Diego just made you lose all credibility on your first day of the job. He won't get away with this. After all he's done, he needs to suffer the...

  1. ~~**Look for where you slipped up.**~~



You don't understand. Where did you go wrong? You've never put so much effort into making someone like you. Everything you did was so calculated. And things seemed to be going so well between you, too. (I mean, you introduced him to your _mother_. That means something.) You're baffled by what could have made his feelings change so quickly.

  1. ~~**Ask him why.**~~



He must have a reason for flaking on you. Maybe he had an emergency. You need answers. Diego is going to have to explain himself. It can't be that he never liked you all that much anyway, could it?

You really thought Diego was different. For once it felt like you’d found something real.

  1. ~~**Push back against your mother.**~~



Never mind Diego. How dare your mother gloat like this? Don't let yourself be cowed by her. You're furious as hell. She stood back and let your heart get broken just so she could prove a point. And worse, she's _enjoying_ this, like your pain is just a cudgel for browbeating you into submission. You're fed up with this, and you're fed up with her—

  1. ~~**Don't rock the boat.**~~



When she grabs your chin, her nails digging into your skin, choke down the learned fear that's rising in your throat. You know that this is deadly serious now. You know what happens, when that smile that could freeze blood and charm a snake at the same time comes out. It doesn’t appear often, but when it does, it’s the only thing that scares you nowadays. Instinctively, you shrink in on yourself, because your body remembers, and it makes you small again, a child at her mercy. You have no choice but to appease her, even if it means killing...

  1. **Hunt Diego down.**



No, you can't let your mother get her way. You've made up your mind at last. She can't force you to murder your lover. You're going to find Diego, and you're not going to kill him. But boy, are you going to give him a piece of your mind!

Find Herb. Bully that pipsqueak and shake him down for information.

Only then he tells you...

And you see the...

  1. **...**



Really, why don't you dispense with the charade? There are no rules. There never were any rules in this shitshow. You're fitting random dots in the sky into patterns that don't exist. You're no better than those cunts who blame all their flaws on being a Leo.

When you were growing up, your mother made the rules. But it's funny—she was never quite clear on what they actually were. Sometimes you'd think you could do whatever you wanted. If you kept up with your training, she was the definition of the cool mum who let you stay up past midnight eating junk food. But then without warning, everything would change. Maybe you'd whiff an obvious shot during target practice, or you'd ask the wrong question. At once, a savage gleam would flicker in her eyes. Her blood-red fingernails would rake across your face like talons, and you'd flinch as her honeyed voice became a yell. _Look at what you've done, you stupid bitch. You're useless to me. I saved you from that hole in the wall, and I could put you back there._

But then hours later, she'd become cheerful again. She'd ooze sweetness and charm. Sometimes you'd dare to stand up to her and ask why she'd done it, and she'd laugh it off. “What are you talking about, little one?” she'd say. “I never told you any of that. Don't be so dramatic, it'll give you wrinkles.” And you'd think to yourself, maybe she was right, and it never happened that way. The scars on your cheeks would fade, and then you'd go back to school and forget it. You’d wait for your summers off with unqualified anticipation. Only it would happen again.

Well, it doesn't matter. You've always known how to adapt and improvise. Since the night you found your parents dead, you've lived in the eye of a hurricane. Chaos is where you thrive.

  1. **When your world falls apart, cling to the only thing that's solid.**



You feel like you're reverting back to a scared little girl. And so, true to form, you do what any little girl would and run crying to your mother. It's fucking pathetic, but at least she'll cluck her tongue and brush your fringe out of your eyes the way she used to when you were upset. For all her flaws, she's the only one who was ever there for you growing up. No one else has ever been on your side.

The last thing you needed when you were already reeling from Diego's betrayal was for Herb to rip open an old wound. You spent decades trying to make your peace with what you lost that night in East London, but now you’ve found out your employers made you an orphan. It tortures you to think of how often you've passed A.J. in the hallway of the Commission, how you spent the past week kissing Five's ass and then let him slip away.

And when your Mum speaks to you in a soothing voice, your stomach twists at the seeds of doubt her words plant.

You remember your own tactics: acting stupid, showing flashes of vulnerability, mixing cruelty with kindness. And suddenly, you wonder what made you so sure that you were the one playing Diego in the first place. Maybe everything—his Kennedy obsession and his thumb on your cheek and his dancing and even his ugly bracelet—was a trick so you'd let your guard down. A game he'd set up with Five to seduce a Commission agent.

You hate how typical it is of your mother to treat even your breakdowns as ammunition so she can get her way. But you might as well trust her. If not, who else can you trust?

  1. **Destroy your enemies.**



Ever since you were four, it's like you’ve kept a tiny box of hatred inside you. And before you went to bed each night, you'd say a dark prayer to some malevolent force and add another spoonful to it. Only no matter how much you put inside, the box always stayed the same size. Soon your hatred was packed so densely that it became a black hole, sucking the light out of everything.

You weren't sure who it was for—maybe the burglars who shot your parents, maybe the whole world—but it would never let you escape its gravitational pull. Sometimes you'd try to get it out of your system with some healthy violence. But no matter how many people you shot or stabbed or garroted, the pit at your core wouldn't lose any mass.

At last, all that hatred has a target. Now you want to pile so much hate onto Five that his bones become sawdust under its weight. To unload every feeling you've ever buried, every nightmare you had of shivering in the crawlspace and hearing the gunshots that cut short your parents' pleading in sequence, every lonely, sleepless night at whatever boarding school you were shuffled off to that year. To smash Five's dimpled face in, to make him cry like the little boy he appears to be, to see blood stream from his snubbed nose and watch him turn purple as you choke him.

Your mother always says nothing cheers a gal up like a little murder.

And when Five won't even apologize, commit to the path you're taking. He stole the chance of a happy life from you. You'll never forgive him.

The others are collateral damage, but if they want to dance, so be it. What better chance to get to know your boy's family?

And it's thrilling to give all these new abilities a test drive. This farm is your playground. You've never had this much raw power at your disposal, and the hot rush of it is invigorating. With six of your kind nearby, you can pick your poison. Sure, some of their skills are more fun to use than others (I mean, _ghosts_? _Really?),_ but every all-you-can-eat buffet has a few duds on the menu. You're delirious at how much havoc you can wreak.

Crush them. Break their bones. Crack their skulls. Steal the breath from their lungs. Relish the stupid gape-eyed shock on their faces when you turn their own techniques around on them. You're a goddess compared them, a motherfucking murder machine. And the best part is you haven't spent your entire life training one measly skill like they have. You're learning on the fly. Within minutes, you're mastering all their signature moves. You're quicker than them and smarter than them and bloody better at everything. And it's all because life has forced you to be versatile. You become whatever you have to be.

If at points, this feels hollow, if you find yourself toning it down when you see Diego in the field, mirroring Vanya's blast as a strong wind instead of a bomb—well, no one needs to know.

Diego doesn't deserve your mercy. He doesn't deserve anything.

  1. **Put off the moment you lose everything for as long as possible.**



When you learn the truth, it feels less like having your world shattered and more like accepting that the fragments were never together in the first place. Your mother always said you were a clever girl. Maybe there's a certain kind of knowledge that the mind can never access because it only lives inside the soul.

And you feel it in your gut the moment Five opens his mouth and points out the obvious—why was your mother there that night, it doesn't make sense, it _never_ made any sense—but you block it out. You want to scream, want to fight him and shove your fingers in your ears and deflect and do anything in the world except acknowledge how the pieces are snapping into place, how it would explain all the little things that didn't quite fit about her behaviour over the years.

Because you can't take this. Maybe everything else was a lie, but please not this too. Let yourself have one thing that's real, because you can't just in one fell swoop lose your mother along with all the hugs and stupid pet names and late-night conversations about boys and banter over room service pancakes and every other positive memory from the past twenty-five years of your life.

But Diego sees through you, and it's all your fault. You're an idiot who gave him the keys to your heart. You let him get close enough to learn how to open you up and tear out your guts for everyone to see. Now with only a few words, he's cracking apart your shell, leaving you naked and exposed and bleeding in front of these strangers.

Once you clung to your mother like she was a beacon in a dark tunnel. Now you're learning it was all fake, that every bit of affection you were ever shown was rooted in evil instead of love. You fell for a glimmer of light sparkling in a pond. When you poke the surface, it ripples and disappears. What the hell are you supposed to do now in the void that's left behind?

Still, when her body is torn apart by bullets in front of your eyes, you find yourself mourning her anyway, even if your tears are less for her than for the person you thought she was.

  1. **Run far, far away.**



You need to get out of here. Need to leave the scene, to flee as far as possible. You can’t breathe. It's too much, it's all too much, and you can't handle any of it. You're sobbing like a baby in front of some bloody do-gooders, in front of Diego who played you like a fiddle and let you make a fool of yourself.

Oh, how sweet, they want you to sign adoption papers now. When you're a mess like this, the last thing you want to deal with is their sickening love. Right now, you're thinking love is a grift. You're thinking you'll hide in a cave on the other side of the planet, in a millennium long before a single fucking Hargreeves was ever conceived, somewhere love can’t reach you. Hate has been much kinder to you than love anyway.

So you pounce on the briefcase before they can stop you. And when the dust settles, you find yourself on a hill in the middle of the night, somewhere in Persia in 1271 B.C.E. 

You crane your neck up. Without the light pollution of modernity, the stars are brilliant. This far back, you can't glean any useful information about the season and the location from the constellations. It's all meaningless.

As you sit down, muddying your trousers, it makes you feel better to know you've left the bracelet behind. Like shedding your skin and becoming someone new. You've abandoned the part of you that loved Diego in another era, to rot next to your mother's body in the straw, lost to history.

It was just a useless trinket anyway. Diego probably doesn't even remember making it. No sense pretending a cheap piece of wood and string is worth more than the pennies it cost. After all, your mother taught you that there are stupid people in this world who are so starved for affection that they'll cling onto whatever scraps they can get. If you manage to buy their love, they'll bleed themselves dry for you. They'll spend the rest of their lives staring at the sky and searching for your face.


End file.
